


Tangle's Next Top Model

by calculatingMinutiae



Series: The Ghost of Glimwood Tangle [13]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Ghost!Allister, T for more curses than usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:15:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22426177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calculatingMinutiae/pseuds/calculatingMinutiae
Summary: Glimwood Tangle, 2020.Bede has just recently been appointed Opal's successor. This is the fourth or fifth time he's seen Galar's youngest gym leader visit Galar's oldest gym leader for tea, and he's starting to find it… irritating.He lives here too now, after all.
Relationships: Beet | Bede & Onion | Allister, Beet | Bede & Poplar | Opal, Onion | Allister & Poplar | Opal
Series: The Ghost of Glimwood Tangle [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1576204
Comments: 10
Kudos: 102





	Tangle's Next Top Model

**Author's Note:**

> [Cover Art](https://2sp00ky.tumblr.com/post/190490312805/bede-rolls-his-eyes-standing-beside-opals)

"So is this a regular thing that you do? Come into other people's homes, disrupt their training in favor of sitting around and lazing about…," Bede rolls his eyes, standing beside of Opal’s kitchen table, shoehorning himself between Galar’s oldest and youngest gym leader as they share their Saturday morning cuppa. They always sit across from each other like old friends catching up at a cafe, or at the very least like a couple of children set to conspire (which, given present company, seems much more appropriate.) It’s _odd,_ to say the least. The boy clings to her hand as though it's a life raft. Thus far, Bede's sworn to himself that he’s only stopping to acknowledge the intrusion in the first place because if Ballonlea is going to be his domain too, now, he should at least have a say in town affairs. Child or not, Allister is a gym leader and public political figure.

Allister also completely ignores Bede’s sneer. "Did you want to try a touch of tea? …I haven't started mine yet," he says in breathy monotone. _Like everything else he says,_ Bede supposes.

"You know what? Maybe I'll take you up on that, _thank you,"_ Bede makes a _display_ of saying, sitting down at the table. It feels out of place, sitting along the edge between them; if interrupting is destined to be his one claim to fame, then he is going to _commit to the bit,_ no matter how much he wishes his most recognizable attribute weren't decided by one impulsive move he made while reaching for pretty much _any_ kind of emotional catharsis.

This bit is much more difficult to commit to than he thought. One swig of this tea sends him shivering so hard he suspects he'll come undone and by the time he gets over it the experience will have literally sent him into next week.

Allister is _giggling,_ under that mask. So is Opal.

He’d expected this kind of thing from her, but from _Allister?_ He'd think they planned this, if only Opal didn't ask a moment afterwards "Do you just have nerves of steel?"

"No nerves," Allister chirps, as though that makes _any goddamn sense whatsoever._ "Tastes like tangy water."

"Ah, of course."

He sets the teacup down, hands still a little unsteady. Bede can only guess whether or not he’s been poisoned, and even then whether or not he should bother trying to spit it out; based purely on Opal’s glare in his general direction, it seems that he, unfortunately, will be living to see another day of Fairy Bootcamp.

Allister takes back his teacup, and goes to drink the rest of it before Opal pats his shoulder.

"Alli, no."

Oh _that_ gets an “Alli, no”? Bede scoffs a little too loud.

The kid takes that teacup seriously. He washes it out not once, but three times, systematically. He even polishes the inside of the massive crack in the porcelain with his sleeve, which has been crudely glazed over to keep it from further damage. 

“I’m sure you could use another cup if you asked,” Bede suggests, watching Allister wander back after he’s completed his little cleaning ritual. 

“...Don’t want another cup,” Allister shrugs, asking Polteageist for another pour of tea.

 _That explains that,_ Bede sighs. 

“Seriously, Allister, that doesn’t seem. I don’t know, _healthy? Sane?_ ” he offers, pointing both hands toward the cup at once. Allister proceeds to take a sip with no problem whatsoever. 

“‘S fine.”

Bede looks to Opal, the alleged adult in the room, for any kind of guidance whatsoever. She does not respond, instead focusing back on the sewing project in her hands. 

“You know what? Fine. But when you have to be hospitalized, I’m not about to call the taxi.”

“Okay,” says Allister, that monotone becoming what many would call concerning, and yet Bede will settle on naming _incredibly frustrating._ First the kid comes to Opal’s cottage unannounced, which was bad enough now that she is not the only person who has to live here, but then to decide to _do it on a regular basis while he has no say in the matter?_

Bede gets up from the table, head down. He mumbles under his breath hoping not to be heard, something along the lines of “‘Scuse me.”

“I hope you’re not planning on going anywhere, boy,” Opal calls just as Bede has very nearly escaped to the confines of his borrowed room. “You haven’t even received your challenge for today yet.”

Bede _sighs._ “Yes, Miss Opal…."

He walks back across the span of the cottage, in the middle of putting on his uniform shoes.

“No no,” says Opal, eyes fixed on her needles. “You’ll need proper boots, for this. You need to collect about a quarter kilo of spritzee feathers in the Tangle.” 

“Isn’t that more than a spritzee’s worth?”

“You’re about to find out, child.”

Bede bites the inside of his cheek, brow furrowed and yet nodding nonetheless. “Yes, Miss Opal.” He unhooks his coat from its hanger. Not that Bede has any clue in the slightest how he’s supposed to _accomplish_ the task, simply waiting for the gut punch as she reels back to reveal the twist in the exercise.

Opal doesn’t seem to be getting up.

“Aren’t we going to go?”

“Yes, child, you will.”

“Aren’t you going to… I don’t know. Monitor my progress, or something?”

“Oh, I’ll know.”

“... Right….”

“I’m not going to be here for you to lean on forever, child. This isn’t your first time traversing the Tangle, and it isn’t going to be the last. The whole place is plastered in Pink and you ought to navigate it for yourself.”

Bede looks up at her with what Allister could almost mistake for betrayal in the quirk of his lip, the twitch of his eye. 

“Of course, Miss Opal.”

He turns to leave. What else is he meant to do?

Opal glances up towards Allister.

“Alli, be a dear and keep him on track, yes?”

Ah. So she’ll actually _ask_ him. How could Bede have expected any differently? He is still a tool, not a person. He’s simply changed hands.

Allister, wordlessly, sets down the teacup, patting Polteageist’s lid as he lowers his mask all the way and turns to the door. All he’s met with is the frigid winter air.

Bede has already gone.

*

You have been walking for you aren’t quite sure _how_ long, boots only leaving vague impressions in the hardened dirt and undergrowth as the sun burns cold over the forest canopy. You hate the winter months, truly. Though you’d initially thought the weather never changed, in Ballonlea, you have quickly come to learn that _actually,_ the Tangle picks and chooses where and when it decides to obey all known facets of, say, _logic_ or _reason._

You are one-hundred-ten-percent sure that it has chosen specifically to spite you, today.

There are no traces of spritzee, or _most_ of the life in the Tangle, at that. You know perfectly well that these woods are home to a myriad of strange and interesting fauna, yet you have yet to see so much as an impidimp running for cover under a mushroom. You’re starting to wonder whether you’re being pranked, or perhaps the world has simply chosen to end while you’re as conceivably isolated from civilization as one can be, in Galar.

At least you have Hatterene and the rest of your party. Once you get tired of walking, perhaps you can convince Rapidash to lend you a hoof, or at least let you haphazardly sling yourself over its back as you pretend not to hate and regret where life has taken you.

No haughty commands of oranguru, no chittering indeedee or whistling sinistea. There is no bark nor bounce of a swirlix, let alone the telltale hum of the spritzee you’re supposed to be looking for. _Buggers decided to stay inside,_ you think. _Clearly they must be smarter than I am for going along with this._

You can’t bring yourself to dedicate much more energy to the search than a passive glance scouting for pink— no, _Pink,_ excuse _you_ — plumage. It’s another idle fetchquest, meaningless gruntwork for someone that doesn’t even care to accompany you along the way. _At least this time,_ so you tell yourself, _if I fail I have a vague idea of where I can go._

You are entirely (un)prepared to turn tail and tell Opal that _it’s winter, no spritzee in its right mind will stay this far north,_ when you get the strange feeling of the hair on the back of your neck standing on end. Hand on Hatterene’s pokeball, you’re the first to draw. 

Ah. It’s only Allister. 

_Allister._

“She get bored of you, or something?” you ask, hands concealed in your pockets. You aren’t about to let your guard down, even if Allister is three-quarters of a foot shorter than you and hardly seems the type to be an aggressor. 

Allister, as you’d expected, merely shrugs in reply. 

He walks alongside you, seemingly blithe and oblivious to the bite and chill of the air in spite of his lack of coat. Then again, you can never really tell, with him. 

“Have you been out here before? The weather patterns are… weird.” 

Conversation, it turns out, seems to be nigh-impossible to start with this kid. The acid on the tip of your tongue keeps you from truly sounding cordial. 

Impossible unless you’re a ghost, anyway; when you glance over to the boy he’s chatting up the air beside a tree stump. You think you can hear Allister laugh, this quiet little sound that only stokes the fires in your lungs. 

“Strange-looking spritzee, isn’t that? Come, now, if you _must_ come on this mission, come with me. I don’t intend to loiter.”

If Stow-on-side’s co-leader were to get lost in the Glimwood Tangle, you know for a fact that Bea would gladly have your head. _It’s self-preservation, see_ . You decide you'll wait a moment for the kid to catch up to you, and not a second more. _But he's a gym leader. If worse comes to worse, surely he can take care of himself._

_This child who, so young, has seen enough tragedy to hide behind his masks to the point of casting doubt he even has a real face._

_This child you presume has been coerced into a figurehead position by forces unknown to you with motives behind your understanding._

_This child who only wants to please, right? Please. Please let things be better now._

_But you're already being replaced._

_You're already obsolete as the_ accessory _you are, and you have to take a stand before the ground is ripped out from under your feet again._

He walks about a pace behind you, and you cannot stand it anymore. 

"What is it you want, then? You have your new _family_ . You're a gym leader before you hit your tenth birthday, the whole region _loves you_ , but that isn't enough, is it? You've just got to be in control everywhere you go, don't you? Playing shy to make them _pity you, oh poor hopeless, helpless Allister,_ well. It's not about to work on me. Don't even try it."

"Okay."

"What, so you admit it, then?"

There's a faint sniffle from behind the glossy white mask, translucent tears floating gently upwards in globules. Like bubbles more than water droplets, they hang heavily over his head.

"Oh, come off it, that's _bullshit_ and you know it! Is this polteageist too?"

Allister hiccups.

You have to convince yourself to stay resolute, to walk a little faster. There’s not a spritzee in sight.

"You're right."

"Yeah?"

"You shouldn't feel bad for me… I don't _want_ you to feel bad for me. But I can't stop this…."

"Why not?"

"Tears don't wanna stop comin' outta my face. I don't, _know_ , but I can't help it. No matter how hard I try, s-so sorry. It's annoying."

"Yes, it _is,_ " you say, refusing to bend now. Not with such a transparent attempt to guilt-trip you. You'd expect you can see them a mile away by now.

"I meant, for me…."

You… aren't sure of what to say. For once, you elect not to say anything at all.

“Opal isn’t, j-ust trying to use you. ‘d know if she were up to anything worth worrying about.”

“And why is that, then? You’re simply _that_ dedicated to being her new favorite grandson?”

“Because I’ve known her for years….”

“You’ve barely been _alive_ for ‘ _years’!”_

“And I haven’t _been 'alive'_ in a hundred and thirty of’em!”

You stop dead in your tracks, glaring over at Allister. The kid, Allister, the one that, one fine Saturday afternoon, had confided in you, verbatim, that he’s “pretty much” a ghost. How soon you forget.

“You’re joking. You can't expect me to believe you lot were serious about that.”

There's a tranquil sort of fury in the way his fist curls up under his sleeve. 

"I-t isn't fair. What you went through, I mean, h-th-they-y didn't, they didn't treat you right, but you _can't_ —"

"You don't know _shit_ about how they treated me. You don't know _anything about me!_ And neither does that _witch_ ," you spit, no longer caring whether or not the hattrem come out of hiding to maim you. At least then, you won't have to stand there and be talked down to. "You do _not_ tell me what to do. I'm in just as high a position as you."

"You can't just be a _TOTAL ARSE ABOUT IT."_

You stop again, and a good two feet behind you now Allister is shaking in his little white shoes. Physically shaking. 

Hang on a tick, is he—

"Fine! Maybe I _do_ want control over _somethin', anythin'_ at this point, but I'm not tryin'na take your life away from you. I'm just trying to make _my own,_ and there's no good reason my best friend can't be part of it."

You take a step closer to him.

"S-Sshe's not a _witch_ , she's earned the favor of the Fae, that's just how things _work_ here. You'd know that if you took a moment to listen to anything but yourself."

You try to wipe the ooze of black sludge from the mouth of his mask, but your hand phases through it.

"Are you meant to be doing that?"

"W-hat?" 

"You're going all. Fuzzy around the edges."

He laughs, a sound you clearly recognize as embittered. “Crumbs….”

Your heart drops to the pit of your stomach, hands scrambling to at least try to put him back together again. Allister makes himself stand a little taller, swallowing back the tide of spectral (you think, you don’t know _what_ that is but you’re fairly certain it’s nothing that’s supposed to casually come from a human person) matter that threatens to overflow. 

"I didn't know," you say, though what you mean is more along the lines of process, you’re still processing. 

"... 'm not here to step on your toes… I know these woods. They're the only thing I _do_ know, and they're full of things that _will_ hunt you down if you aren't careful… and even if you are." 

"Like?"

"... Grimmsnarl. Trevenant, really would be a former psychic specialist's nightmare… Opal and I were talking about it. But she's worried you might get too dependent on her… can sting stronger than you realize, losing somebody so constant in your life."

You back up a step, staring into the blank holes of his mask in search of _something_ to read. Everyone has a tell when they're lying, but you have yet to pin down Allister's. Before you can stop yourself, you've already said: 

"I've never heard you speak this much."

"Been thinking about it a couple weeks, now… 'm getting better at, at speaking my mind. Or trying to." 

He isn't shaking quite as hard, though he's stopped trying to brace himself with the nearby trees. If anything, his body's gotten… less distinct? As though where his body should end in sharp lines bleeds gradually into the rest of the Tangle. 

"What's wrong with you?" 

"... I-I'm sorry, w-hat did I say wrong?" 

"Nothing, but you're coming undone and I'm _this_ close to calling the medics."

"Oh…," Allister looks down at himself for, apparently, the first time, slightly disappointed and ultimately unperturbed. "This? … Happens."

" _What._ "

"Ghost stuff," he shrugs, shuffling his feet a little bit. 

"Yeah, _no_ , I'm not gonna buy that either."

"I-it's…."

"Not a big enough deal to bother them with?" you finish instinctively, approaching Allister the way you've come to approach a skittish hatenna. 

"Didn't drink enough t-tea, I guess…," his soft monotone trails off. 

"It keeps you in one piece?"

"Mmhm."

"Is that the only thing?"

"... I can't ask you to...."

 _A-hah._

"Try me." 

"It's… I'm. Mostly energy now, yeah? Need more and less to keep being all… human-ish."

"Point being?" 

"... 'Can take it. Like ghost pokemon. But 'm not… _great_ at it,"

"So you have to hold her hand."

He nods. 

You roll your eyes, because _of course_ you'd be stuck babysitting a spirit with a taste for human souls, comma-or- _something_ , icing on the supernatural bullshit cake that is your current residence. You should have expected this, really. 

“She insisted… ‘n wouldn’t let it go until I did ‘n it’s keeping me awake. sometimes I think she’s better at knowing me than I am, she. She cares a lot. It just isn’t always obvious the ways other people show it.”

You readjust your coat’s collar. Maybe, just _maybe_ you don’t need to hide behind it, nor strain your neck to always face forwards while looking back. There is no use for metaphor, here in the dark of the fairy’s forest. The undergrowth and trees will still treat you the same way. 

You look at Allister, and you could hate yourself for _hesitating_ . Hesitating makes you late to the fight, hesitating gets you cast out, anything but complete assurance makes you lesser, and you _know_ this. Yet, still, somehow….

“How do I know you’re not lying to me.”

“What do I gain from lying to you?”

“I don’t know. My soul, or whatever.”

“‘N what would I want with that?”

“Control?”

“Nuh,” he shakes his head. “That’s… that’s not how that works at all, actually.”

“And again it’s your word with nothing to substantiate it.”

Allister looks around, leaning partways-through a tree, and sighs. 

“Swear you won’t tell anyone.”

“Wha—”

“ _Please.”_

“Alright, alright, I’ll consider it. Now just what am I agreeing to?”

Allister looks up at you with tired violet eyes. They’re the same as yours, really, save the spark of light that flickers at the pupil and the heavy bags beneath, like he hasn’t slept in decades. He tugs on a ribbon underneath the collar of his uniform, an opaque white bead taking on the cast of blocked sunlight. 

His mask is in his other hand. 

“... _Oh_.” you say, dumbly, the sound-not-word escaping devoid of meaning or intent.

“You’re a psychic, yeah? Were? Know enough about it to tell I’m not lying to you. Opal _wants you_ to be her successor. She does, ‘cuz she sees something in you, and it’s too important to ever throw away. So don’t.”

You. Nod, lightly. Something you’ve managed to do, somehow, has made Allister trust you enough to look you in the eye. You can see him sweat with fearful anticipation of your response, your reaction, your next move. You feel very powerful. 

You remember the last time you felt this powerful. You told him _he won’t amount to anything, he doesn’t have anything of his own to show, he’s a disgrace to his brother’s name._ The dopamine high did not last, but Bede, endorsed by the Chairman of the Galarian League, has one defining trait. 

You force yourself to _commit to the bit._

You refuse to look this child in the eye and watch him crumple the same way. 

“Okay.” 

You offer him your hand. 

He tilts his head, and you can see the minimal inflections to his expressions. He really _does_ keep his face mostly slack, save a little quirk or a twitch of the eye, at least until he looks your way and strains a smile. 

“Come on, then. You’re not going to crash in the middle of the woods on my watch, you know. Psychics aren’t the only ones vulnerable to Dark and Ghost.”

“‘M fine. Learned to deal with it a long time ago, can handle myself. You’ve got a mission, don’t you?”

“And I haven’t seen a single pokemon this entire trip, let alone any spritzee.”

“Of course not, they’re holed up for the winter… otherwise they’ll freeze.”

“So she sent me on a fool’s errand.”

“Only with that attitude,” Allister shrugs, a sly little look in his eye. 

“There are no spritzee and here I am, made to walk around like an idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot,” Allister interjects. “You’re looking in the wrong places.”

You want to tell him _yeah, no shit,_ but he speaks up before you can. 

“What do you know about spritzee?”

“They’re avian pokemon with strong scent glands.”

“Mmhm. But you can’t sniff them out when it’s so dry and cold, right?”

“And?”

“What else do you know about them?”

“They… migrate south of here, when it gets cold.”

“And how cold is the Tangle in the winter?”

You roll your eyes with no particular recipient in mind, except maybe whatever force of nature decided to subject you to the logistics of _here._ “Depends on the spot an’ the day,” you say sarcastically.

Allister nods. “So the spritzee here, they…,”

“Only move, throughout. the Tangle.”

“Exactly.”

“They’re still here.”

“So where do you suppose they go?”

You look over to him, laying back to the point of phasing through the tree entirely and laying on the ground to look up at its branches. 

“Oh you are _kidding me,”_

You crack a smile, fascinated, and dare reach for the mushrooms suspended from the tree bark over your head. It’s a long way up, but, for better or worse, you are _fearless._ Moving bit by bit, foothold by foothold, you keep your pokeballs close in case of an emergency teleportation back down. You’d teleport up, really, only you aren’t sure just where in the trees you’re _looking for._ This place is as good of one to start as any. 

*

Today, you have learned many things. 

The first of which happens to be that spritzee huddle together in tree hollows for the winter. In Glimwood Tangle, this happens to mean a good _sixty feet off the ground,_ but it’s still kind of sweet nontheless. 

Until they start pecking your fingers. Then it is very much _not_ sweet and you want to climb back up there to tell the feathery bastards what-for, but Allister and his Gengar shake their heads _no, no, no_ as they escort you to the ground instead of letting you fall _too_ hard. 

“League doesn’t need more ghosts,” Allister says, and you can almost sniff out a touch of sarcasm from him. You can’t quite articulate exactly why you’re ever-so-slightly proud.

The pair of you walk to another arena of aspens, looking for more spritzee dens. 

“The Tangle is more or less its own organism,” Allister tells you, idly messing with the straps of his suspenders. “‘S all connected, somehow or another. Like it’s all one very, very big thing with its own problems. Like keeping consistent temperatures. The ghosts don’t really mind, though, we. Well. Yeah, _we_ don’t really feel it.”

“Where have all the phantump gone, then? The trevenant?”

“Hibernating.”

“But they don’t f—”

“They don’t _feel_ the cold. They’re still part Grass, yeah? Susceptible to freezing. Better safe than sorry. Honestly part of me just wants to make sure you don’t wake them up….”

“I thought you saw one earlier?”

He turns to face you, mask strapped to his head but pulled up to still show off his face. Evidently, he feels safe in the Tangle. Safer here than in Stow-on-side, his _actual_ home nowadays, you suppose. You want to ask, but not today. 

The look he gives you is one in mourning. 

“More reason to try and protect them.”

“Right,” you turn to another tree, and try to purge the mental image from your memory. Up you go. 

These spritzee… aren’t home, so it seems. Instead of coming together into a massive clump of Birds, they’ve left for other, greener, warmer spots in the Tangle. Luckily for you, they’ve left plenty of down behind. 

When you descend, you have everything under control for _most_ of the way. It’s only in the last three feet that a well-timed splinter makes you let go for just a second and start to plummet to the ground. You’re hoping and praying to your lucky star that _maybe_ you end somehow slightly less embarrassing than this ( _alright, alright, the poor child)_ , and for the first time in your life it answers you. 

You manage to land softly on your feet. 

A look to the left, then one to the right. 

No strings.  
  
Allister is busy trying to get his Mimikyu out of a different tree entirely. 

You blink, blink, _ouch._ Pinching _does_ work, either this is real and you are still alive or it’s a very impressive simulation. Either way, you decide to maybe _never speak of this again._

“Hey, do you think this is a quarter-kilo?”

*

When you and Allister head back to Ballonlea, you offer him your hand again. 

He doesn't say anything, pretending not to see it. He lowers his mask a little bit. 

"If I ask Opal is she gonna tell me you've always been a bit of an obstinate loon?" 

"... Maybe," he mutters, trying to wipe the vestiges of emotion from his face. Out of the Tangle means out in society. Out in society means decorum, and, you suppose, it's been strangling this kid for over a century.

"Alright. But, I do owe you for helping me. And maybe if we're even, we can hm. Not, tell Opal how long it took to figure out?" you smile, and you feel so _stupid_ about it but it's the one social signal you know he knows well enough to imitate. 

"'m not stealing your soul."

" _No,_ your little. Weird healing thing. You look like you need it, and no matter how fit my mentor is the old bat's still got somewhere like seventy-five years on me."

"You're sure?" 

"Ask me again and I won't be." 

Allister, with a sliver of apprehension, takes your hand and pulls his mask down the rest of the way. His Mimikyu, riding on his shoulder, does all the emoting for him; it stares at you in disbelief from behind its disguise. It hadn't expected you to make the offer in earnest, flinching once Allister’s fingers wrap around, at most, three of yours, but there is no catch. No price, and no punishment, you just. Walk with him, confirming one more person in this era they can trust. Part of you wonders if this is how it feels to have a sibling.

Mimikyu hops to the ground, excited, leading the way to Opal's house.

You set your bag on the table when you walk back into the cottage, a little tired from the trek. "These Pink enough for'ya?" 

“Shoes,” Opal scolds half-heartedly, smile creeping its way into her tone. The children have returned, and they haven’t even killed one another!

Allister wipes his feet on the welcome mat even in spite of the fact that his shoes have failed to pick up any dirt on account of being mostly incorporeal. You suppose it’s in your better interest to do the same. 

When you turn to hang up your coat, its hanger is gone. You sling it over the back of the sofa instead.

You want to question Opal, but as soon as you turn to where you’d _swear_ she’d been sitting not ten minutes before, she’s gone. Instead, there are two cups of hot chocolate at the table. Allister’s usual cup in Allister’s usual place, and a mug in the space adjacent to both of theirs. 

You take your place at Saturday tea, and it finally feels _right._

The feathers have also disappeared, you find out halfway through a sip of hot chocolate as you notice a single feather of spritzee down left in front of you. You can only imagine what she’d wanted it all for.

“Disguising herself as an aromatisse,” Allister suggests, and it gets you to crack a genuine smile. Beneath the mask, he does too. 

*

You only find out when you can’t find your coat the next morning, your magenta Macro Cosmos coat nowhere to be found. In its place in the closet, right next to Opal’s own ostentatious, _hideous_ feather boa, is a coat just as long and just as insulated as the one you’d lost. Difference being, instead of Macro Cosmos magenta, this coat happens to be _Ballonlea pink,_ with your number and the gym’s symbol on the back, and full of spritzee down. You zip it up to your chin, banishing away Bede, challenger endorsed by the Former Chairman of Everything in the Galar Region for good. 

You are Bede of Ballonlea, and you think you finally have somewhere to belong.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to say straight up that I no longer remember how much of this was inspired by [WolfStarmie's](/works/21860710/chapters/52173946) [Bede, ](/works/22258360/chapters/53150899) but I am willing to bet it is nonzero.
> 
> Also, [huddling together is just an actual thing that bluebirds do?](https://helpforbluebirds.wordpress.com/2008/11/08/heated-bluebird-winter-roost-box/) I know spritzee aren't particularly bluebird-like, but consider the following: Cute.


End file.
